BEIJING (Reuters) - China has launched a nationwide
inspection of schools amid rising public anger at revelations
that many educational institutions secretly gave children
medicine to ward off illnesses and boost attendance, state media
said on Friday.

No deaths have been reported, but food and drug safety for
toddlers is a highly sensitive issue in China after at least six
children died and thousands were sickened in 2008 from drinking
milk contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical.

Local governments have been ordered to inspect schools and
particularly kindergartens, to check if they were illegally
administering any medicine, the official China Daily said,
citing a health ministry notice.

A string of reports since last week has revealed that at
least six kindergartens in three provinces gave toddlers a cheap
antiviral drug without informing their parents.

Some kindergartens are said to have done this for years, in
a bid to reduce sick leave and avoid having to pay refunds for
the children's absence. The schools get paid based on
attendance.

Parents in the central province of Hubei and the
northwestern province of Shaanxi have taken to the street to
demand a thorough probe and stiff punishment for the offenders.

"We only have one child, and you fed them with a banned
drug," read one banner carried by protesters in photographs
published on microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

That statement reflects a particular anxiety of many Chinese
couples, restricted by strict rules to having only one child.

The government must look into the incidents, tighten
management and prevent similar incidents, Premier Li Keqiang
said on Wednesday.

More than 1,000 children received the drug in their
kindergartens, and many suffered abdominal pains and itchiness
among other symptoms that parents fear are side effects of
prolonged consumption, state media say.

Police have detained at least 10 people responsible for
buying and administering the prescription drug, often used to
treat influenza, to healthy children without permission.

Chinese parents' faith in school safety has been eroded by
many incidents in recent years, ranging from axe attacks by
mentally unstable people to sexual abuse.

Two children died in southwestern Yunnan province after
ingesting rat poison, the China Daily said in a separate report
on Friday, although it was not clear if the event was deliberate
or an accident.

Last year, a 62-year-old school teacher was jailed for
molesting seven second-grade girls and infecting six of them
with sexually transmitted diseases.